Orion Nebula's Young Stars Offer Glimpse of Stellar Puberty

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Astronomers have spotted a swarm of young stars in the famous
Orion nebula in the midst of their growing pains — a turbulent
phase when the fledgling stars mature into adulthood.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space
Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, the researchers observed the
developing stars rapidly heating up and cooling down as they grow
into adult stars.

In the
new Orion nebula photo, the bright specks of stars are awash
in rainbow colors that represent different wavelengths of
infrared light. This stunning view of the well-known stellar
nursery, which is located 1,350 light-years from Earth, helps
astronomers piece together the
process of star formation.

In the image, the sensitive infrared instruments of Spitzer and
Herschel reveal budding stars that would otherwise remain hidden
behind thick veils of gas and dust to visible-light telescopes.
These stars are in the very early stages of stellar evolution,
NASA scientists explained in a statement.

Stars are born as clumps of gas and dust collapse into balls of
material surrounded by rotating gaseous disks that feed material
to the newborns. Over several hundred thousand years, some of
these developing stars siphon enough material to trigger nuclear
fusion at their cores and become a star. [ 50
Fabulous Nebula Photos ]

Spitzer is designed to see shorter infrared wavelengths than
Herschel, so by combining data from both spacecraft, astronomers
can gain a more complete understanding of how the young stars are
behaving in the
Orion nebula.

Herschel surveyed this portion of the sky once a week for six
weeks in 2011, monitoring the activity of young stars. The
observatory examined long infrared wavelengths of light that
trace cold dust particles, while Spitzer probed the warmer dust
at shorter infrared wavelengths, NASA officials said.

Astronomers noticed that several of the young stars brightened
and dimmed by more than 20 percent over only a few weeks. Since
the twinkling comes from cool material emitting infrared light,
this material must be far from the hot center of the young star,
NASA scientists said.

At such great distances, the material should take years, or even
centuries, to spiral near the young star and cause the twinkling,
rather than weeks.

Astronomers are investigating whether lumpy filaments of gas
could be funneling in from the outer to the central regions of
the star, warming it as the clumps hit the inner disk. Or,
material could be gathering at the inner edge of the disk and
casting a shadow on the outer part, they said.

"Herschel's exquisite sensitivity opens up new possibilities for
astronomers to study star formation, and we are very excited to
have witnessed short-term variability in Orion protostars,"
Nicolas Billot, astronomer at the Institut de Radioastronomie
Millimétrique in Grenada, Spain, said in a statement.

Billot and his colleagues are preparing a paper on the findings
of their study.

"Follow-up observations with Herschel will help us identify the
physical processes responsible for the variability," he added.

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